Boss Laser Engraver

[Dave Sheldrake]

The detail is good, no problems there. The biggest disadvantage of the Boss lasers (and this is true of virtually ALL Chinese lasers!) is that they are 3-5 times slower than their US counterparts when it comes to engraving (rastering). This is because they have stepper motors not servo motors. Cutting they are much closer in speed though, because the power of the tube is going to dictate more than the speed of the motor when it comes to how fast you can cut.(it's due to the rise time of the tube and the weight of the components it has to move around, you can get Chinese machines with Servo drives and they are no faster than the one's with Step drives)The other major difference is the CO2 tubes fire differently than the DC metal tubes. The glass CO2 lasers don't have the ability to do the dot or dither patterns as well as the US machines as a result.

(They do but many Chinese controllers aren't set up to use PWM and are wired Analog so will only see black and white and cannot read greyscales)


The one thing I would add, would be that 100 Watt might be overkill unless you're planning to do almost exclusively cutting. There is a lot of debate on this, but with the Chinese lasers I'm personally of the opinion that sometimes the higher wattage machines are harder to dial in to get that perfect raster on detailed work. Just my $.02.

(The problem with big tubes is power, a large number of DC tubes will not trigger reliably under 8-9% power (some more like 12 - 15%), if you have a 100 watt and want to use 5 watts, the tube is unlikely to fire that low.The other problem is the incident beam from the tube is fatter / bigger on bigger tubes, a bigger incident beam means the final spot size is smaller hence the fluency (power density) is a lot higher as well so you can end up in the same situation as above again (too much power over too small an area)

[Keith Downing]

The detail is good, no problems there. The biggest disadvantage of the Boss lasers (and this is true of virtually ALL Chinese lasers!) is that they are 3-5 times slower than their US counterparts when it comes to engraving (rastering). This is because they have stepper motors not servo motors. Cutting they are much closer in speed though, because the power of the tube is going to dictate more than the speed of the motor when it comes to how fast you can cut.(it's due to the rise time of the tube and the weight of the components it has to move around, you can get Chinese machines with Servo drives and they are no faster than the one's with Step drives)The other major difference is the CO2 tubes fire differently than the DC metal tubes. The glass CO2 lasers don't have the ability to do the dot or dither patterns as well as the US machines as a result.

(They do but many Chinese controllers aren't set up to use PWM and are wired Analog so will only see black and white and cannot read greyscales)


The one thing I would add, would be that 100 Watt might be overkill unless you're planning to do almost exclusively cutting. There is a lot of debate on this, but with the Chinese lasers I'm personally of the opinion that sometimes the higher wattage machines are harder to dial in to get that perfect raster on detailed work. Just my $.02.

(The problem with big tubes is power, a large number of DC tubes will not trigger reliably under 8-9% power (some more like 12 - 15%), if you have a 100 watt and want to use 5 watts, the tube is unlikely to fire that low.The other problem is the incident beam from the tube is fatter / bigger on bigger tubes, a bigger incident beam means the final spot size is smaller hence the fluency (power density) is a lot higher as well so you can end up in the same situation as above again (too much power over too small an area)

Right. So, Dave is just clarifying my reasoning (I think).

But we both seem to agree on the basic points:

-- Chinese machines are significantly slower than US machines.

-- US metal tubes fire in pulses (dots per inch). Chinese glass tubes fire in solid bursts, on or off, lines per inch (or most likely lines per mm).

-- High power tubes can occasionally be detrimental to someone trying to do fine detailed work at lower power on a Machine. And this goes double for the Chinese machines because they can only move so fast; so you're more likely to end up in a situation where you need to use less than 25-30% power.

[Alan Hutchins]

Thanks Keith and Dave. I appreciate the feedback.

The speed issue does not concern me as much as the quality issue. Since I anticipate doing a lot of things with photos I am wondering how satisfied I would be from the Boss Laser or similar DC laser. I appreciate the tip about the higher wattage tubes as well. If I do go with a Boss or similar laser then I might stick with a 60 Watt for that reason. I had been considering the 100W unit to be able to cut thicker material but most of what I will be doing is engraving so maybe a lower wattage unit would be better.

Also thanks about the information on the controllers. I have emailed Boss about their ability to do grayscale and received no response at all...not a good thing from a sales perspective even if they cannot handle that type of file. I might try calling them next week to see what I can learn or even request a sample.

Another machine I have been looking at is the smaller AP Lazer SN1812. It has a 40W laser and is in my price range but not sure on its abilities for doing photos either. The portability looks nice but wonder about not having a fixed deck to help align material, etc. I could even be able to squeeze into my budget a smaller 40W Epilog Zing 24x12 unit. Maybe going down to a smaller unit and less wattage would be better for my purposes.

The only experience I have is with a laser engraver is watching a friend of mine use their older Epilog Unit and it does really great work on photos. I like the larger size and price of the Boss LS1630 but maybe need to reconsider and go with a smaller, lower wattage Epilog instead.

Alan

[Keith Downing]

Thanks Keith and Dave. I appreciate the feedback.

The speed issue does not concern me as much as the quality issue. Since I anticipate doing a lot of things with photos I am wondering how satisfied I would be from the Boss Laser or similar DC laser. I appreciate the tip about the higher wattage tubes as well. If I do go with a Boss or similar laser then I might stick with a 60 Watt for that reason. I had been considering the 100W unit to be able to cut thicker material but most of what I will be doing is engraving so maybe a lower wattage unit would be better.

Also thanks about the information on the controllers. I have emailed Boss about their ability to do grayscale and received no response at all...not a good thing from a sales perspective even if they cannot handle that type of file. I might try calling them next week to see what I can learn or even request a sample.

Another machine I have been looking at is the smaller AP Lazer SN1812. It has a 40W laser and is in my price range but not sure on its abilities for doing photos either. The portability looks nice but wonder about not having a fixed deck to help align material, etc. I could even be able to squeeze into my budget a smaller 40W Epilog Zing 24x12 unit. Maybe going down to a smaller unit and less wattage would be better for my purposes.

The only experience I have is with a laser engraver is watching a friend of mine use their older Epilog Unit and it does really great work on photos. I like the larger size and price of the Boss LS1630 but maybe need to reconsider and go with a smaller, lower wattage Epilog instead.

Alan

Well, I will concede, that if you're ONLY getting the laser to do photos, you might find it tougher to get the results you want. But that goes for every Chinese laser. You might also consider watching the auction sites and craigslist in your area for a used Epilog, Trotec, or Universal. But you're definitely paying several multiples more for the US machines at the same size and power, even if you're buying used.

Also surprised to hear that you didn't get a response from Boss. If it's been more than 2 days, I'd definitely give them a call. Maybe your email hit their spam folder. That happened to me once. But someone has picked up every time I've ever called them (maybe 6-8 times) as long as it was during normal business hours (EST). They will usually either be able to transfer you to a salesman, or setup a time for a technician to call you back later that day.

[Bill George]

Allan you can still do photos with a Chinese Co2 machine but they need to be dithered. I did some really nice ones with my small Chinese machine and I might get another. If you have Corel Draw you can try a photo and see. True the US and Trotec RF machines can do true greyscale and do engraving or rasterizing much faster. But sometimes you get what you can afford. You just want to make sure you get something that works!!

[Dave Sheldrake]

If you are aiming at Photo's to be honest go Western made, RF is a LOT more controllable and will fire from 1% (or less if the machine will let you set it that low) and give you a far bigger range of speeds.

A few chinese machines claim greyscale but they aren't, as Bill said, you need to dither the pictures first to get decent quality (something I rarely get involved in) the enemy of DC tubes (in the price range we are on about) is their rise times...it's a lot slower than RF

For engraving go western, for raw power and cutting go Chinese

[Alan Hutchins]

Well, I will concede, that if you're ONLY getting the laser to do photos, you might find it tougher to get the results you want. But that goes for every Chinese laser. You might also consider watching the auction sites and craigslist in your area for a used Epilog, Trotec, or Universal. But you're definitely paying several multiples more for the US machines at the same size and power, even if you're buying used.

Also surprised to hear that you didn't get a response from Boss. If it's been more than 2 days, I'd definitely give them a call. Maybe your email hit their spam folder. That happened to me once. But someone has picked up every time I've ever called them (maybe 6-8 times) as long as it was during normal business hours (EST). They will usually either be able to transfer you to a salesman, or setup a time for a technician to call you back later that day.

Keith,

I probably was not as clear as I should have been. I have plans on doing a lot more than JUST photos. In fact a lot of the products and projects that I have in mind do not include photos. I just am looking for feedback on how well the machine will do when engraving photos to wood, etc. as that is something I will be doing a fair amount of. (I am a serious amateur photographer and have lots of wildlife images and other photos that I think would be great to use for photo engraving on wood, leather and other materials.)

Being a total newbie to engraving but one who likes to thoroughly research something before making a major purchase I was just looking to see examples of what other people are doing on lasers like the Boss models so I have the best understanding of what the quality expectations might be in regards to engraving photos.

I had pretty much narrowed my search down to the Boss 1630 when I posted and was just looking for some examples to help cement/verify my decision. My reasons for strongly leaning towards the Boss are the excellent reviews they have online and strong reputation and the excellent price for the power and size. I have spent countless hours the last week searching these forums and other sources for information on the different types of lasers as well as companies and am basically in the final stages of making the plunge to purchase a unit.

I originally sent my question about doing grayscale images to them via their online contact form on Tuesday and then followed up on Thursday with an email and have not gotten a response to either one so my plan is to call them next week to speak with one of their sales people about their machines.

Thanks again for your feedback and helping me in my decision making process.

Alan

[Alan Hutchins]

Allan you can still do photos with a Chinese Co2 machine but they need to be dithered. I did some really nice ones with my small Chinese machine and I might get another. If you have Corel Draw you can try a photo and see. True the US and Trotec RF machines can do true greyscale and do engraving or rasterizing much faster. But sometimes you get what you can afford. You just want to make sure you get something that works!!

Thanks Bill,

Price and affordability are a big part of why I have been leaning towards the Boss Laser or something similar. If money was no object I would go with an RF machine without hesitation. I do not have Corel Draw yet but do use PhotoShop a lot and have watched some videos on how to prep images, so I have started playing with converting images to be engraved. I suspect that with proper image conversion or through the use of a program like Photograv that I should be able to get good results on the Boss laser but sometimes tend to second guess my decision making. I like the idea of the bigger size, stronger laser and lower cost of the Boss but am weighing that against being able to work with grayscaled images instead of dithering because of the quality that would seem to offer.

Alan